The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday halted the execution of a man who would have been the first person in the United States put to death over a shaken baby syndrome diagnosis.

Robert Leslie Roberson III was scheduled to be executed on Oct. 16 for the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki. The state’s highest criminal court granted a stay while a trial court examines whether evolving scientific evidence warrants relief under a Texas law allowing challenges to convictions based on discredited science.

Roberson was convicted in 2003 after doctors diagnosed shaken baby syndrome based on brain swelling, bleeding and retinal hemorrhaging. Medical records later revealed Nikki had severe pneumonia and had fallen from her bed—factors that could have caused the symptoms

See Full Page